Some Pain Is Worthwhile
by IsisO'neill-sawyer
Summary: Adam tries to cope with an injury, and Julie’s there to help.


Some Pain is Worthwhile

Disclaimer: Unfortunately I do not own the Mighty Ducks. I'd really like too, but hey, whaddaya know.

Summary: Adam tries to cope with an injury, and Julie's there to help.

Author's note: This is not set during D2 but some time after D3. Hope you like and please review!

Luis faked the Derronview's Demons no. 8 player. He slid the puck round the other guy's ankles and put on a burst of speed, easily distancing himself. Gee was waiting a third-way up the ice to receive it as he flicked the puck towards him.

Out of the corner of his eye Luis saw Adam shoot past him, flying past the other defense players to go join Gee up near their opponent's goal. He smiled mischievously, knowing the other team had no idea what was coming.

Adam followed Gee up center ice. He watched as Gee beat one of their opponents, sliding the puck out of his reach. Spinning around on his skates Gee regained his lost momentum. Adam saw Gee acknowledge where he was and carry on up to the goal.

The next second the puck came flying towards him as Gee was knocked down by a defender. Adam didn't even think. The moves just automatically played themselves out in his head in a split second. Whilst he was checking Gee, the defender had left the goalie unassisted, and that was exactly what Adam could exploit.

Threading the puck between strokes of his stick Adam sped towards the goalie. He didn't slow down though and as the goalie looked ready to try a jump save, thinking Adam was going to try to charge him, Adam changed the angle of his skates and skated around the back of the goal.

The goalie was thrown off by this sudden change of trajectory and lost his balance, falling to the left of the net. Leaving the goal open for Adam to score from the right.

"Alright Banksie!" Gee yelled, the first one to reach his teammate.

"Nice one Adam!" Luis yelled, barely heard over the din of the siren, as he joined them.

Adam grinned and nodded at his friends as he skated off to take the face-off.

"Think that was a smart move duck-boy?" The Demon said.

"Yeah I do." Adam said, not really caring that this was probably not a very wise thing to do. He was still ecstatic about getting a goal.

"Well you won't!" the offender hissed.

"Bring it on." Adam replied.

"Alright boys, sticks on the ice." The ref said. "Ready? Go!"

Adam surged forward, just managing to get his stick to slide the puck along to Dwayne before the offender slammed into him.

"You're dead!" the player yelled.

Adam flexed his knees, twisting onto the edge of his skates and threw the Demons player off of him.

"Wow," he said, getting ready to skate off "I look good for a dead guy."

The player growled and pushed himself onto his knees. He growled again, this time a lot louder and swung his stick over his head to connect with Adam's right wrist.

"Ahhh!" Adam yelled as pain seared through his wrist and his legs went out from underneath him.

"ADAM!" Gee yelled as he saw his friend hit the ice.

In that slit second the whole of the ducks team were on their feet yelling, either at the demons' player or the ref for not calling something. The referee's shrill whistle was hardly heard above the racket.

"Adam? Adam you ok?" Gee asked as he crouched by his teammate.

Adam wanted to lie, he wanted to say he was fine, that the stick just hit his hand the wrong way and that he could continue playing – just like he had in the Goodwill Games. But taking one look at the blood that was poring off his wrist he knew he couldn't.

"Adam?" Charlie's voice rang out as he joined him and Gee.

Adam looked up at his team captain and best friend and said nothing; he just removed his right glove slowly.

"Holy sh-" Gee whispered as the three of them looked at the mess of flesh, blood and bone that was Adam's wrist.

"Oh my… Adam you're not dizzy are you? Faint or anything? That's an awful lot of blood." Charlie said reaching over and gently holding his friend's wrist up.

Adam simple shook his head. He hadn't felt the pain for the first few minutes, he'd been more worried about the game and whether he could continue playing or not. But now it was coming full force and Adam had to bit his lip to not scream in agony.

"REF! We need a medic here!" Luis yelled, as due to the commotion the two teams had caused nobody but Adam's three teammates had noticed his injury.

As soon as Luis yelled, an assistant ref (the real ref was too busy separating Portman and Fulton from the Demon's team) and Orion were by Adam's side.

"Banks-" Orion began, but then he got a good look at Adam's wrist and swore as he bent down to look at it closer.

The assistant ref stood up and signaled to the standby medics to get on the ice and then skated over to the Demons player "That's intent to injury and game misconduct; you're out of the game son. Let's go."

Dwayne peered over Orion's shoulder at Adam "The guys wanna know if you're ok Adam, the ref won't let them leave the bench."

"Adam?" Julie called as she joined the huddle of ducks around their top scorer.

Adam's lips were now a tight thin line so he couldn't respond to his friends, but Charlie, being his best friend and reading him like a book, answered for him.

"Dwayne, go back to the bench and tell the others to calm down. We're gonna get misconduct penalties if they keep their behaviour up."

"But what about Ad-" Dwayne began.

"Tell them I'll tell them what's going on when I get back to the bench ok? Julie, Gee, Luis? Go back to your positions and look like you're getting ready to play."

The four ducks nodded and skated off to do as their captain had told them. Julie looked back over her shoulder as she did so, trying to catch a glimpse of Adam to reassure herself, but Charlie and Orion had him blocked.

"Nicely done Captain." Orion said "You in any pain?" he asked Adam.

Adam stared at him blankly for a moment before shaking his head enthusiastically. Charlie, understanding what Adam meant, couldn't help but laugh. Orion looked puzzled for a minute then registered the fact that Adam had been being sarcastic. Rolling his eyes, Adam gave his coach a half-hearted glare. Orion laughed at this as the medics arrived.

"Ok son, just take it easy." The male medic said as he carefully took Adam's wrist out of Charlie's grasp and examined it.

"Alright, we're gonna need to get you to surgery. This break is really bad. We'll just get you a stretcher."

Adam's eyes went wide at this last comment and shook his head violently.

"No," Charlie said quickly, seeing his friend's reaction "He can skate he doesn't need a stretcher."

The medic looked between the two players "Are you sure? He's lost a lot of blood; we really should get him a stretcher."

"No, he'll be fine. He can skate." Charlie repeated firmly.

The medic looked at Orion and the coach nodded.

"Ok then, let's get you up." The medic, Orion and Charlie all pulled Adam up and, balancing with the medic's help, Adam skated off the ice.

Orion sighed and turned back to face his team, seeing the mix of worry and anger in their eyes he knew they wouldn't be able to play properly until he had told them what was going on. Walking back over to the bench, he signaled to the ref. "Time out."

The ducks almost crushed their coach and captain as they crowded around them to get news about their star player.

"Is Adam ok?"

"What happened?"

"I'm gonna pound their asses!"

"How bad is it?"

"Will he be back on?"

"Yeah Portman! Let's make them pay!"

Orion closed his eyes as the comments hit him in a tidal wave of sound. Sighing and opening his eyes he looked towards Charlie. The captain's face was contorted with worry and pain for his friend. It didn't help that Russ and Goldberg were pounding him for answers.

"Alright, enough!" Orion yelled "Quiet down, all of you!"

Once there was silence Orion continued. "It's bad. Adam's wrist has either been fractured or broken and there was a lot of blood loss. He won't be playing for awhile. But he was ok otherwise, and seemed more concerned about the game than his wrist."

"Just like in the Goodwill Games." Julie said quietly.

The others looked at each other uneasily, knowing what Adam went through back then.

Orion nodded and continued "But let's not dwell on that now, we've got a game to finish."

"How can you tell us not to dwell on it!" Fulton asked furiously, his voice strained.

"Yeah!" Portman, Luis and Connie agreed.

"Because it's not what Adam would want," Charlie spoke up "He didn't want us knowing about his injury back then and he tried to shield us from the extent of it now. Adam was more worried about the game and our attitudes than his own health. He's showed us that twice now and it would be poor friendship and disrespect to him if we ignore that."

Everybody was silent as they watched Charlie.

"Now, I'm as worried about him as you are but coach is right, we're not going to focus on that now. We're going to focus on the game. We are not however," Charlie paused here, looking over at Fulton and Portman "going to misplace our worry into anger and take it out on the other team and get ourselves sent off." He paused, making sure that both bash brothers (and everybody else) understood "We're going to get them back the way Adam would – by showing everyone that they are lousy cheats who can't play hockey. Alright?"

"Yeah!" the whole team yelled.

Charlie nodded and skated back onto the ice. Skating past where Adam had been, he cold see a pool of blood had settled there. Charlie shook his head and reverently hoped his best friend would be alright.

TBC

Well, Whaddaya think? Please review and tell me! The next chapter should be up soon and is the one the summary actually suits. Thanks for reading.


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